… [O]verseas investors have voted with their feet. Applications for foreign direct investment slumped 78 percent in the first 11 months of 2015. Exports have fallen for three straight years.

“It’s partly self-deceiving to legitimize their existence, and partly their loss of touch with reality,” said Puangthong Pawakapan, an associate professor of international relations at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. “The junta leaders do not see how people now are worried so much and struggling with economic hardship.”

“The main achievement of the military was achieved within 24 hours,” said Korn Chatikavanij, a former finance minister and a member of the Democrat Party, whose supporters largely cheered the coup. “Subsequent to that they haven’t achieved much. But then I never expected much.”

What can we say? Korn is right, but when he says he didn’t expect much, he is disingenuous. He wanted the military as much as all his anti-democrat and elite chums.

“I don’t believe Thailand will have an election until the succession is completed and the throne is stable,” said Puangthong at Chulalongkorn University. “This is the main objective of the 2006 and 2014 coups. If the king passes away — the mourning period will be at least one year. The junta will use it to condemn any politicians demanding an election.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Than [Rittiphan, 23, a student of international relations at Ramkamhaeng University in Bangkok and a member of the New Democracy Movement]…. “This country is not a toilet that you can put up a sign saying ‘under construction.’ You cannot wait for democracy.”